Bejoy Nambiar on Kaala: 'Music took a backseat for the first time in my life'

Kaala, starring Avinash Tiwary, Rohan Vinod Mehra, Nivetha Pethuraj, and Taher Shabbir, among others, will stream on Disney+Hotstar from September 15, 2023.

Bejoy Nambiar has written and directed Hindi, Malayalam and Tamil language feature films and short films. He made his directorial debut with Shaitan in 2011, adding titles such as David, Wazir and Taish to his filmography. Last year, he co-directed the Madhuri Dixit starring mystery drama The Fame Game and, more recently, was one of three directors on the Tamil series Sweet Kaaram Coffee.

Bejoy Nambiar

At the time of this interview, as showrunner of the upcoming crime drama Kaala, Nambiar is racing to finish post production of his newest and most challenging work. Starring Avinash Tiwary, Rohan Vinod Mehra, Nivetha Pethuraj, Taher Shabbir and others, the Disney+ Hotstar show (premiering September 15, 2023) is about an IB officer who, falsely accused in a hawala operation, sets out to follow the hawala money trail. Excerpts from an interview:

What was the starting point for the story of reverse hawala which is central to your show Kaala? Is it based on true events?

It is a fictional story with a few bits and pieces inspired by true incidents. I had a fabulous team of writers, and it was a very interesting discovery process for all of us. This is my first show as a showrunner, so it was a really interesting learning experience for me. We devoted a lot of time to research. Thankfully, we had an army of consultant early on in the process, who guided us through a lot of things that we wanted to incorporate into the story. Plus, I spoke to several hawala operators in detail, who told me many fascinating stories and took me to some interesting places. I had to keep all that in my memory and then recount it in detail to my writers. There were many things we only knew on the surface, but we dove deep down into it. As much as the show is about reverse hawala and about money-laundering rackets, etc., it also explores the darkness within men, the darkness within all of us, and how it manifests and how it affects lives around. You will see layers of that in almost all the characters and how it plays out, psychologically. I'm very excited and curious to see how the audience reacts to that aspect, which actually forms a very big part of the story.

How did your previous experience on anthologies like Navarasa and Flip and as co-director of the Hindi web series Fame Game help when it came to crafting your own web series?

More than the anthologies, which was like directing a short film, directing full episodes of Fame Game gave me a good perspective on how a showrunner takes on a show and adapts it over a long time. I learned a lot from that and also from the Tamil series Sweet Kaaram Coffee. These were good experiences and I guess my baby steps for getting into a full-blown show.

Kaala is set largely in Kolkata. Was that organic to the story or premeditated?

That was very specific and intentional. Very early on we knew clearly that this is where we want to set the story and these are the characters. Kolkata obviously works because of the Bangladesh passage for hawala, but apart from that as a milieu and as the bed for the story that we were trying to say, it felt more organic than say Delhi. When we started getting in more and more details, Kolkata just felt like a natural fit. As a filmmaker, I was fascinated by Kolkata. I visited there around the time of shooting Wazir, during Durga puja time. I was just blown away by the nature of the city.

Can you speak a little about the cast which is an interesting mix of actors, from around the country.

I enjoy the casting process. I'm very actively involved and I fight for some actors that I am convinced should do the role. Also, at the risk of sounding like a cliche, I love to go against the grain and do some unconventional casting. Sometimes I fail. But the one time that I kind of get it right, that for me becomes magic - even if the audience doesn't connect with it. Personally, I get a creative high from this. Luckily, in Kaala, we found some people who were way more than what I expected them to be.

Music has been a very interesting element in your movies such as David, Shaitan and Karwaan. Can you bring music into a show like this?

Usually when I write a script, I have raw music, which I use during the edit, but because the show was like an eight-episode project, getting through that was the main agenda. Music took a backseat for the first time in my life. But eventually, it did find its way. Luckily, my frequent collaborator Gaurav Godkhindi designed the entire score for the show and helped me curate some of the songs for the show. We got some very interesting pieces of music and interesting musicians to collaborate on the music. We are very happy and proud of the music.

As a filmmaker you've worked on shorts and features. What was the most challenging aspect of directing a series?

It was a new turf. I'm a feature filmmaker. I know that grammar and staging very well. But this was a very different beast. I took baby steps because this was a completely new ballgame for me, and I had to adapt to it. The learning was constant. The most challenging aspect for me was the sheer volume especially as I decided to direct all eight episodes. I had planned to have another director partner with me but I decided I would not be able to part with what I was writing. I would just be insecure because I'm so attached to the material and see it a certain way. So, the sheer volume hit me hard, even in post-production.

What else is coming up for you?

As this show took almost three years to make, I managed to finish a film in the middle. It’s a Hindi and Tamil bilingual film, which will be coming out early next year. It’s called Dange in Hindi and Por in Tamil.